68 
THE APPLE. 
should be placed on tiers on their sides , and the cellar should be 
kept as dark as possible. In such a cellar, one of the largest 
apple growers in Dutchess county is able to keep the Greening 
apple, which, in the fruit room, usually decays in January, until 
the 1st of April, in the freshest and finest condition. Some per- 
sons place a layer of clean rye straw between every layer of 
apples, when packing them in the barrels. 
Apples are frequently kept by farmers in pits or ridges in the 
ground, covered with straw and a layer of earth, in the same 
manner as potatoes, but it is an inferior method, and the fruit 
very speedily decays when opened to the air. The English ap- 
ple growers lay their fruit in heaps, in cool dry cellars, and 
cover them with straw. 
When apples are exported, each fruit in the barrel should be 
wrapped in clean coarse paper, and the barrels should be placed 
in a dry, airy place, between decks. 
Cider. To make the finest cider, apples should be chosen 
which are especially suited to this purpose. The fruit should 
be gathered about the first of November, and coarse cloths or 
straw should be laid under the tree to secure them against 
bruising when they are shaken from the tree. If the weather 
is fine the fruit is allowed to lie in heaps in the open air, or in 
airy sheds or lofts for some time, till it is thoroughly ripened. 
All immature and rotten fruit should then be rejected, and the 
remainder ground in the mill as nearly as possible to an uni 
form mass. This pulp should now remain in the vat from 24 
to 48 hours, or even longer if the weather is cool, in order to 
heighten the colour and increase the saccharine principle. It 
is then put into the press (without wetting the straw,) from 
whence the liquor is strained through hair cloth or sieves, into 
perfectly clean, sweet, sound casks. The casks, with the bung 
out, are then placed in a cool cellar, or in a sheltered place in 
the open air. Here the fermentation commences, and as the 
pomace and froth work out of the bung-hole, th e casks must be 
filled up every day with some of the same pressing, kept in a 
cask for this purpose. In two or three weeks this rising will 
cease, when the first fermentation is over, and the bung should, 
at first, be put in loosely — then, in a day or two, driven in tight 
— leaving a small vent hole near it, which may also be stopped 
in a few days after. If the casks are in a cool airy cellar, the 
fermentation will cease in a day or two, and this state may be 
known by the liquor becoming clear and bright, by the cessa- 
tion of the discharge of fixed air, and by the thick crust which 
has collected on the surface. The clear cider should now be 
drawn off and placed in a clean cask. If the cider, which must 
be carefully watched in this state to prevent the fermentation 
going too far, remains quiet, it may be allowed to stand till 
spring, and the addition at first of about a gill of finely powdered 
